navigation

Lyden Foust was an ethnographer traveling the world on behalf of corporations, living in a city for months at a time to learn what he could, and reporting back to the people who hired him. “I realized people were telling their social media more than they would ever tell me as a researcher,” Foust said. And so he partnered with his friend Will Kiessling, a jet engine software… Read More

Waze, the popular Google-owned navigation app that helps drivers route around traffic and alerts them to other road hazards in real-time, is today announcing partnerships with half a dozen companies in the on-demand and transportation space worldwide, including Lyft, who will integrate Waze software into their own applications to provide routing and guidance.
This, in turn will feed more… Read More

On-demand transportation service Uber lost out on its joint bid for Nokia’s Here mapping unit, so it’s moving ahead with putting together its own navigation, mapping and location services. Today, Dutch mapping company TomTom announced a deal to provide data to Uber for use in its navigation for Uber drivers (and specifically not Uber passengers). Specifically, Uber will… Read More

It’s 8am and you’re in your garage. You have to head into a different direction today, but you can’t fire up Google Maps until you’ve left the garage, because you’re offline. You probably pull off to the side of the road until your phone gets connectivity.
Not anymore. Starting today, Google Maps will make itself available offline (search and navigation) for… Read More

Search giant Baidu has made no secret of its ambitions to expand its business outside of China by way of mobile services. Now it’s struck a deal with Nokia that could help it with that by serving domestic users abroad. Nokia’s mapping and navigation business Here says that it will now power maps for Baidu outside of China, specifically aiming the service at the large number… Read More

Apple has a couple of new patent application with the USPTO (via AppleInsider) that details what could be its solution for providing transit directions. The patents describe something that resembles a combination of the apps it has acquired it this space, including Embark and HopStop. The system would offer comparison of a number of different commuter options, including buses, shuttles, trains… Read More

Hardware startup Navdy has raised a $6.5 million seed funding round for its connected car tech, which focuses on the heads-up display it created. The company had closed the funding officially before it ever began its pre-order campaign, which has netted the startup $2.4 million in committed orders since it began on August 5.
The company closed the funding on August 1, and the round… Read More

Frustrated with using the built-in infotainment system and his phone in his car, Doug Simpson, CEO and founder of Navdy, decided to create a heads-up display to create a new and safer way to interact with smartphones while driving. Read More

Telenav has made a large investment in the crowdsourced OpenStreetMap (OSM) project and currently employs the project’s founder Steve Coast. With the help of this, the company hopes to take on Google’s mapping services for both mainstream users and developers.
Telenav’s involvement has given the OSM project quite a boost, and so it’s not a major surprise that the… Read More

Mapbox, the OpenStreetMap-based mapping platform that lets app developers incorporate maps into any app, is adding another feature to better compete against the likes of Google Maps, ESRI and Nokia Maps: Smart Directions, a navigation service that developers can customise with extra details such type of terrain, specific places of interest, and current traffic conditions.
Its first… Read More

The problem with navigation applications is that they assume you’re trying to find your way from Point A to Point B right now. They don’t permit busy travelers to pre-plan their trips in advance, and they don’t help you with the last leg of the journey – finding parking – either. A new application called Spot On Time wants to change that.
From a company called… Read More

The offline navigation system Sygic is rounding out its offerings by integrating with Groupon, Foursquare, and ParkMe on a slew of new features for their U.S. and Canada user base. Although the Slovakian startup’s apps have accumulated 30 million users across 115 countries since 2004, Europe remains their biggest market. In order to lock down a larger swath of the Americas, Sygic is… Read More

One of the many joys of exploring a city like Taipei is its maze of lanes and alleyways, which are lined with small shops, incense-filled temples and leafy parks. The downside is wrangling with addresses like this: 台北市南港區八德路四段768巷1弄18號B1之1 (B1-1, No. 18, Alley 1, Lane 768, Bade Rd Sec 4, Nangang District, Taipei City). A new startup called POcode (which stands… Read More

While Nokia continues to work on clawing back some of the once-market-leading smartphone business it has lost in the last few years to Apple and Android handset makers like Samsung, it has also slowly been building out a business based around its mapping and navigation division, rebranded as HERE earlier this year. That strategy — which has seen deals with the likes of Toyota… Read More

Most GPS is a relatively imprecise tool, honing in on your location to within around a few meters, but new Kickstarter project Piksi aims to provide accuracy within a single centimeter, via a new GPS receiver that uses Real Time Kinetics (RTK) it’s trying to fund via Kicksarter. The Piksi combines open source software and hardware to give UAV hobbyists and others access to the advanced… Read More

Garmin built its empire on dedicated GPS devices, but those are obviously facing extinction in the face of smartphones that can replicate their function without requiring an expensive secondary hardware purchase. Today, Garmin announced a device that could help it capitalize on its changing role in the navigation ecosystem, while still allowing it to sell hardware to consumers. Read More

The US Patent Office has just published a new patent application by Apple that integrates crowdsourced traffic data for real-time information about road conditions, similar to what Waze does. Waze, which was just acquired by Google, seeks user input on changing road conditions, and rewards users for making accurate reports. Apple’s patent also offers route choices based on criteria… Read More